A town called Luck produced more than £12.5 million worth of winners in Spain's Christmas £2 billion lottery.

A lottery shop in the small town of Sort – the Catalan word of luck – in the foothills of the Pyrenees sold tickets that netted 15m euros (£12.75m) of prize money in Spain's El Gordo – The Fat One – which boasts the biggest total pay out in the world.

The shop, 'La Bruixa d'Or' – the Golden Witch – sells more tickets than any outlet in Spain because of the name of the town and the fact it has stocked winning tickets several times in the last decade.

Prizes totalling 2.3 billion euros (£1.9billion) were distributed to several thousand winners across Spain with the top prize awarded to holders of tickets numbered 79250.

The winning number appeared on 195 tickets. But with one single ticket costing 200 euros (£170), few fork out for one on their own, meaning it is rare to get instant millionaires through the draw.

Instead it is more common to buy decimos – a tenth of a share in a ticket. Bars, offices and sports clubs often form syndicates sharing a ticket between their members.

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Dozens of other tickets win lesser prizes ensuring the wealth is distributed widely across Spain.

In what has become a favourite Christmas tradition, the annual draw on December 22 takes around three hours as numbers are sung out by schoolchildren in a televised process that has the nation gripped to its screens.

While consumer studies reported that Spaniards were spending less this Christmas, as the country struggles on with austerity measures and 20 per cent unemployment, the average amount each household spent on the lottery has increased this year, from up to 69 euros from 58 euros in 2009.

This year will be the last that the competition is run 100 per cent by the state. The Spanish exchequer announced earlier this month that it will privatise some 30 per cent of the lottery in a bid to reduce the country's debt.